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Associationism and cognition: Human contingency learning at 25

Quarterly Journal of Experimental PsychologyPublished 1 March 2007
David R. Shanks
Citations169
SJR quartileQ2
SJR score0.83
SNIP0.98

TL;DR

The key conceptual differences between cognitive or inferential approaches to contingency learning are outlined and some of the main methods that have been employed to distinguish between them are summarized.

Abstract

A major topic within human learning, the field of contingency judgement, began to emerge about 25 years ago following publication of an article on depressive realism by Alloy and Abramson (1979). Subsequently, associationism has been the dominant theoretical framework for understanding contingency learning but this has been challenged in recent years by an alternative cognitive or inferential approach. This article outlines the key conceptual differences between these approaches and summarizes some of the main methods that have been employed to distinguish between them.

Keywords

Psychology